


Confession

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Let's be honest, M/M, because these boys are gay, fixing the awful CC canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 09:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20079736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: With the final battle on the immediate horizon, Albus needs to tell someone about how he feels before he goes insane. Waiting for Delphi in St Jerome's Church, he finally starts to talk to his mother.





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

> This has been done a lot but had to add to the overpopulation of vague fix-it fics at St Jerome.

Patience was not one of Albus Potter’s virtues. Endless waiting in the cold and the gloom of St Jerome’s was driving him crazy and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep pacing for. He and Scorpius had slept for a while, the first rest they’d gotten since Delphi had kidnapped them, but the stone floor of the church wasn’t exactly the height of comfort and now Scorpius was on Delphi watch with his dad and he wasn’t sure he could get any sleep without knowing his friend was safe beside him. Not anymore. 

All the free time meant the thought that had been bubbling up in his head ever since he and Scorpius had been kept apart, ever since Delphi had used the cruciatus curse, was blaring like alarm bells in his brain. It was all he could think about and he had to get it off his chest. Ginny had sat herself off away from the others on a pew and, although she was stressed enough about Harry, Albus just had to do this now, while he was running on adrenaline alone and consequences didn’t seem to matter because who knew what the future would be.

“Mum, can I talk to you?” He asked, leaning awkwardly against the side of the pew. If she didn’t want to be interrupted from her worrying, he wouldn’t push it.

The second she knew her son needed her, Ginny shook away her fear and focused on him.

“Of course. What’s wrong?” she asked, certain nothing he had to say could scare her more than everything she’d already heard from him about what Delphi had put them through. Still, she’d learned the value of listening to him. Making him feel heard.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just... in case Delphi kills us all, I just wanted to tell you something,” he mumbled, paying more attention to the floor than his mother.

“Delphi is not going to kill us all,” Ginny correctly sternly. She hadn’t survived the Battle of Hogwarts to be beaten by a young girl with a power complex and daddy issues. 

“Voldemort, then,” Albus shrugged. Like it mattered how it happened or who was holding the wand.

“He won’t kill us all either. We’ve fought him before, Albus, and won.”

He was impressed by her optimism, especially considering the bleakness of their current situation, but he couldn’t be so sure. And he didn’t want to die with this secret burning a hole in his chest. Someone should know, and he trusted her most. The process of elimination had ruled out telling anyone else - Uncle Ron would try to find comedy where there wasn’t any; he couldn’t bother the Minister for Magic with this so Aunt Hermione was equally off limits. Telling Draco Malfoy would potentially be the worst idea he’d ever made, and thinking of telling his own father made him want to tell Delphi to kill him faster. Which left his mum.

“I like him, Mum. Scorpius. I really, _really _like him,” he admitted, barely loud enough to be heard in order to stop his words echoing around the room. 

“Oh,” Ginny blinked. She hadn’t known what he was going to say, but she’d never have guessed it would be that. It was a strange time for her son to decide to come out. “I can’t say I’m surprised, exactly. I suspected, but-”

“You did?!” Albus yelped. “For how long?”

If she knew, who else did? His stress levels were already maxed out from the end-of-the-world situation they had going on, but somehow this news from his mother managed to inject even more adrenaline into his veins. He wanted to run.

“I’m your mother, Albus. And all you talk about is him,” Ginny pointed out with a smile.

“That’s not true,” Albus huffed.

It was definitely true. Even before he’d kissed Scorpius for the first time, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from including a paragraph about his friend in his letters home, or talking about him over the dinner table when school was on break. James teased him for being the founding member of the ‘Scorpius Malfoy fan club’, and had started many arguments with his brother over it. He didn’t understand what he was actually accusing Albus of, though, that much was clear, or Albus knew he would never have heard the end of the teasing for his crush on the son of their father’s childhood enemy.

Ginny just laughed, gesturing for Albus to sit at her side and putting an arm around him.

“It’s not a bad thing, you know that right? It doesn’t make you any different,” she insisted.

“You’ve met your Uncle Charlie’s boyfriend. If we haven’t exiled him for it, I don’t think we’ll be exiling you.”

The few times Albus had been introduced to his mother’s second oldest brother, he’d spent the day confused and conflicted. At first he hadn’t known why, worried that he was nurturing bigotry without really understanding what he had really been feeling. Eventually he figured it out. He wanted it. When he saw his uncle put his arm around his lover and press a kiss to his cheek, the ache in Albus’ chest was a longing for the freedom to be that open about himself. But he didn’t have the confidence to assume that the acceptance of his uncle was going to be transferred to him.

“Uncle Charlie’s never around,” he shrugged, dragging his feet up onto the pew so he could hug his knees.

“Because he loves dragons more than most people. Not because he’s been ostracised,” Ginny explained. Really Charlie’s boyfriend was lucky that he’d managed to drag his attention away from dragon eggs and breeding programmes long enough to capture his attention.

Albus stay quiet. He didn’t want to hope.

“Albus Dumbledore,” Ginny added, seemingly throwing in the name in out of nowhere.

“What about him?”

“He was gay. Maybe your father knew something I didn’t when he suggested we name you after him.”

Ginny was teasing, but Albus scrambled away from her. There was a worrying depth of alarm in his eyes when he turned to beg her.

“Dad can’t know!” he insisted, forgetting for a moment that he was trying to keep his voice down. At least Harry wasn’t in the church to overhear the conversation.

“He wouldn’t love you any less,” Ginny tried, but she knew it didn’t mean much coming from her. Harry was trying to make amends, but it couldn’t be an immediate switch. He needed to earn Albus’ trust and that was a process.

“You don’t know that. I’m a Slytherin, I’m rubbish at school, rubbish at magic, rubbish at quidditch. And now I’m queer,” Albus mumbled, fiddling with a loose thread at the cuff of his jacket.

Ginny’s eyes went wide at the word. She’d brought up her children better than to use names.

“Hey! Albus Severus Potter, don’t you dare use that word when you’re talking about my son. Don’t use it at all, in fact,” she growled, swatting him gently on the shoulder.

Albus snorted. There were a few upsides to this whole gay thing, he was learning. One of them was kissing Scorpius, which was definitely top of the list, but another was that he suddenly had access to new words to describe how he felt.

“I think I’m allowed to say it,” he shrugged, smiling just a little.

“Not when you make it sound like a bad thing,” Ginny ordered. Then she frowned. “Do you think it is a bad thing?”

That was something Albus really hadn’t had time to consider yet. He wanted to talk to Scorpius, establish what grounds they had found themselves on, but he knew he didn’t have it in him yet. Scorpius had been his friend for years and was one of his favourite people, and whatever situation they had found themselves in sort of felt like a natural progression. Kissing his best friend felt incredibly _right_. He just wasn’t sure quite how to explain that to his mother without his cheeks burning.

“I like being with Scorpius. I like how he makes me feel. I just wish my life didn’t keep getting more difficult,” he managed, only garnering a light blush on his cheekbones.

“So he feels the same way? You’re together?” Ginny pushed, just a little. She wanted nothing more than to see her children safe and happy.

“I... hope. It’s new. I don’t know what happens if everything goes back to normal.” With a stern look from Ginny, he corrected himself. _“When_everything goes back to normal. In the other time, when I was in Gryffindor and Dad kept us apart, I... I’ve never been away from him like that before, not even able to talk. It was awful. Then when we came back and with Delphi and then here... I hurt him so much. I put him in so much danger.”

There were tears in his eyes as he remembered the cruciatus curse, a spell that would haunt him forever, being turned on the boy he’d been kissing not an hour earlier even after they’d been torn apart in McGonagall’s office. He’d never felt so helpless, and he hoped he never would again.

“I put everyone in so much danger,” Albus sniffled. Mistakes he would never make again had ruined the very fabric of his reality.

“And then you fixed things,” Ginny pointed out. She reached out to put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “I’m not going to lie to you, Albus. Memory is a powerful thing, as is guilt. Not that I believe you _are _guilty, but... I could have destroyed the world too. I almost did. And even though I didn’t, I still felt the guilt of what I’d done.”

“You were manipulated,” Albus mumbled. As much as he disliked hearing tales of his father’s triumph and youth, he rather enjoyed hearing about his mother’s childhood at Hogwarts. She was, he had to admit, remarkable.

“So were you,” she pointed out. Sometimes she was surprised by how much of herself she saw in her son. “Your father understood. He was the only one there in the Chamber of Secrets who saw Tom Riddle, who felt his power. The only one I knew for certain didn’t blame me. Scorpius understands how you feel now better than anyone, and that is worth a lot. You’re worried when we get back to our own time, this... romance you’ve started won’t continue?” She waited for a shy nod before continuing. “I can’t speak for how he feels but I can tell you that when we get back, you’ll need each other. And I don’t think he’ll be in a rush to abandon a good thing.”

“I almost wish he would. Then Dad would never need to know,” Albus sighed.

"Albus-” Ginny tried, but he wasn’t about to listen to her attempts to comfort him.

“Scorpius Malfoy, Mum. I’m in love with Scorpius _Malfoy_.”

The word love escaped his lips without his permission. He wanted to take it back, to have Scorpius be the first one to hear it, but it was too late. Rather than draw attention to the words, Ginny offered a soft, knowing smile and left them alone. They weren’t hers to hear, that much was obvious.

“And he is a lovely young man who is extremely lucky to have the affections of my son,” she said instead, making Albus blush. “It’ll be the Christmas holidays before you know it. Maybe you could invite him round one night for dinner?”

It sounded nice. Like some kind of fantasy where it was actually possible for them all to survive this and for life to turn out okay. Albus couldn’t quite visualise being sat round the Potter’s kitchen table, Scorpius at his side and holding his hand out of view, while everyone joked and laughed and carried on as if everything was normal. He didn’t let himself think about it for too long.

“Christmas is cancelled for us, remember Professor McGonagall. We’ll be enduring endless detentions,” Albus mumbled, not wanting to remind his mother too much of all his most terrible mistakes.

“I think, in light of recent developments, we may be able to convince her to readjust your punishment a little. You saved the world, Albus. You and Scorpius both. And for what it’s worth, I think the two of you make a wonderful couple.”

Ginny managed to coax Albus back into a hug and this time he couldn’t help but dive into it, hugging back and relaxing into the new feeling of not being alone. It was a relief. The worst wasn’t over yet, but for once he thought maybe it would be. And when it was, he had a conversation to have with a very awkward, very sweet, really quite unbelievable boy.


End file.
